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VENOMOUS
ADAM BLACK BOOK 3
KARL HILL
 Copyright © 2020 Karl Hill
The right of Karl Hill to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted
by him in accordance to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2020 by Bloodhound Books
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be
reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior
permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in
accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.
www.bloodhoundbooks.com
Print ISBN 978-1-913942-13-7
 CONTENTS
Love crime, thriller and mystery books?
Also by Karl Hill
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
A note from the publisher
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 ALSO BY KARL HILL
T he A dam B lack S eries
Unleashed #1
Violation #2
For the ‘Old Soldier’
Who never gives up
 1
3RD JANUARY

Truth lies in the heart of combat

Hattori Hanzo

A dam Black had devoted an entire wall of his living room

to the task ahead. Also, a good proportion of the floor. Files.
Case notes. Medical reports. Psychologists’ opinions. Photographs.
It was a task few would gladly have accepted. Why then, had he?
He couldn’t provide an instant answer. Maybe the challenge, the
danger, the huge risks involved.
Or maybe something else. Something darker, bobbing always to
the surface of his thoughts, like flotsam, incapable of sinking away.
Maybe it was the prospect of dying, which in this case, was a likely
outcome, and which, if Black were to bare his soul, was something
he welcomed. Craved.
He sat on a chair, in the centre of the room, and gazed at the
photographs he’d pinned to the wall. They filled almost every space,
in neat rows and columns. Before and after. Photographs of ten
young women. Pretty, fresh-faced, smiling, frowning, sad, drawing
dramatic poses. Pictures of them growing up, as school kids, with
parents, siblings, at birthday parties, Christmas time. Pictures of
everyday life. Then more photographs of an altogether different sort.
The same ten young women, in locations in various parts of
Glasgow. Naked, mutilated, dead. Smiles and frowns vanished,
expressions stricken.
 In the centre was a photograph of a man. He was looking directly
at the camera. It was taken on the day this man had pled guilty at
the High Court in Glasgow for the abduction and murder of the same
ten young women. Six months earlier.
Black stared at the face, which stared back. The eyes. They
wormed deep into his soul.
And soon they would meet.
Black stared.
The Red Serpent stared back.
 2
FOUR DAYS EARLIER – 30TH DECEMBER

T he room was at the end of a long corridor, at the back of

a squat, stone-built, pre-war structure near the centre of
Dumfries, a building drab and square and unremarkable, with tall
metal-framed windows blanked out by closed blinds. The only
indication of what it was used for was a small sign bolted onto the
wall by the main front door – Infrastructure and Development. A
“non-title”, thought Black. As it had to be.
The front double door was entered by pressing a buzzer on the
wall outside. A man, sitting at reception, unlocked it from a panel on
his desk. He had greeted Black with a terse nod, unsmiling, entering
his name in a book. Room 7. First floor. The interior was basic. Bare
clinical corridors, devoid of any ornamentation. Tiled floors, white
walls. Strip lights at regular intervals providing harsh illumination.
There was no name on the door to the room Black was in. There
were no names on any of the doors, in fact. Only numbers. More
secrecy. Layer upon layer, until the truth became so hidden, it got
forgotten. This was the world Black had been asked to enter.
He sat on one side of a large walnut veneered desk. It was clear,
save a telephone, a tray of papers, a laptop, and two cups of coffee.
Also, a single sheet of A4-sized paper. The walls were blank, except
a clock. It was 8am. The room was large. At one end, a cracked dark
leather couch, and some chairs round a cheap coffee table. In a
corner, a drinks cabinet, glittering with bottles and glasses.
On the other side of the desk sat Colonel Stewart Mackenzie. A
small, compact man. Neat features. Weathered skin. Grey hair
shaved above the ears, a bristling salt and pepper moustache. Blue
eyes, sparkling with inquisitive intelligence. Immaculately dressed –
crisp white shirt, dark tie, dark suit. A military man, a lifetime
serving Queen and Country, and he looked every inch of it. Black
was less formally dressed. In fact, the opposite end of the spectrum.
Jeans, open-collared shirt, somewhat-worn running shoes. He didn’t
give a damn about dress code. He openly rebelled against it. If it
bothered the Colonel, the Colonel didn’t show. Not that Black would
have cared particularly if it had.
They each had a coffee. Black liked his strong, no milk, no sugar.
The Colonel spoke in a clipped, neutral voice. A hint of an accent.
Perhaps Yorkshire. The Colonel had never volunteered his origins.
Black had never asked.
“Thanks for coming, Adam. I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Your call was intriguing. Bordering on the theatrical. A threat to
national security. Not something you hear every day. You caught my
attention.”
The Colonel gave a small sad smile. “That was the idea. And I
wish it was theatrical. But this is a million miles from theatreland.
This is more – how can I put it without being clichéd – the stuff of
nightmares.”
“You can’t get much more of a cliché.”
“But it describes the situation well enough. Read this.”
The Colonel pushed the piece of A4 paper across the desk. Black
picked it up and read the words typed on it.
Elspeth wakes screaming in the night. When she is lucid, her
conversation can be stimulating, if a little distracted. But she is most
revealing. She confides in me. She tells me all her secrets. And she
has many.
I listen to Elspeth with the patience of a god. And when she
reveals her last secret, when she has given me all she can, then we
become eternal.
Like a circle. Like a serpent swallowing its tail.
She’s Mummy’s little girl.
Soon, she’ll be mine.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tempus fugit.
 28 th December, and counting.

Forever yours,
Red Serpent
x

Black placed the piece of paper back down on the desk top.
“The Red Serpent?”
“This is a copy. The original was sent to the Chief Constable’s
office. By special delivery. To avoid the Christmas logjam.”
Black frowned. “Sorry for not catching on. What am I looking at,
exactly?”
The Colonel lifted the cup of coffee to his mouth, took a sip,
grimaced. “Hate instant shit.”
“You should visit my office. I live on the stuff. You become
hardened to it, after a while.”
The Colonel placed the cup back on the desk. He cleared his
throat. His tone was exact and clear.
“A twenty-two-year-old woman went missing four days ago. On
the 26 th December, to be precise. She was visiting Edinburgh to
spend Christmas with some friends. Innocent enough. They’d gone
to a club. She went to the bar to get drinks, and wasn’t seen again.
Her friends got worried and called the police that evening. The
police responded instantly. They carried out an immediate search of
the building and the surrounding area. But there was no trace. She’d
vanished.”
Black raised an eyebrow. “They called the police? And got an
immediate police response? Wow. Things happen fast nowadays. A
young girl getting drinks goes AWOL from a nightclub in Edinburgh
at the height of party time. It won’t be the first time it’s happened.
But yet, the police were called, and the police came running.
Imagine that.”
“Keep that thought,” the Colonel said. “I dare say, under normal
circumstances, matters would have plodded along, the police stirring
after twenty-four hours or so, the wheels of law enforcement
grinding into action.”
“But the circumstances were not normal.”
“Abnormal,” the Colonel replied. “Monumentally abnormal.”
“Which brings us back to my opening remark.”
“Remind me.”
“The Red Serpent.”
“Ah yes. Him.”
Black waited.
“It seems he’s back.”
Which was impossible.
 3

T he Colonel cleared his throat once again, as if about to

commence a presentation. “I don’t need to remind you of
the details, but I shall. To give you context. Most of the civilised
world followed the exploits of the psychopath referred to as the Red
Serpent, christened by the media on account of his predilection for
tattooing his victims in a particular and somewhat distinctive style.”
“A serpent swallowing its tail.” Black knew the case well. The
Colonel wasn’t exaggerating. The Red Serpent’s antics had captured
the interest – and fear – of an entire nation.
“Ten young women, over a period of five years. Two every year.
A conveyor belt of death. He was methodical and consistent in his
timetable. Two days after the initial kidnap, the police would receive
a typewritten letter. In his later letters, he’d adopted his given name,
referring to himself as The Red Serpent. I think he was rather fond
of it. Exactly two months from the date of the letter, the victim
would be dumped, in random places throughout Glasgow. Left at
night, to be discovered the next morning. Maybe a park, a quiet
street corner, a multistorey car park. Each victim mutilated and
dead. A five-year killing spree. Until…”
“Until he was caught.”
“Until he was caught,” the Colonel repeated. “Six months ago. He
pled, he was sentenced, case closed. The world rejoiced. One less
serial killer.”
“Which brings us back to the letter,” Black said.
 The Colonel picked up the A4 piece of paper, gazed at its
contents. “The letter,” he said softly. “The letter that shouldn’t be.”
Black took another sip of coffee. “We have what… a copycat
thing going on here? Or, dare I say it, you got the wrong man.”
The Colonel gave a brittle smile. “If it were so simple. The right
man was caught. He admitted to things only the killer would know.
Plus, the evidence was overwhelming. Victim’s blood on his clothes,
little keepsakes found in his house. And of course, he pled guilty.”
“Compelling.”
“Now the really compelling bit. The letter received two days ago
is in the same style as the previous ones. Also, and crucially, it
contains words featuring in every letter sent, details of which were
kept from the public domain. He uses the Latin phrase – tempus
fugit. Time flies. He finishes off, forever yours. Identical wording in
ten letters. You see the conundrum we face.”
“Right guy captured. No copycat. Looks like he had a pal. Not so
much of a conundrum, more like one major fucking headache.”
“Succinctly put,” the Colonel said, “but it’s only half the story.”
“I wondered when we were getting to this. Her friends called the
police, and they came immediately. Who then is Elspeth?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
 4

T he Colonel opened a drawer in his desk, took out a

folder. In it were photographs, which he handed to Black. A
young woman, smiling, in different settings. On a beach, with
friends. In a library, sticking her tongue out, rolling her eyes. At a
restaurant, toasting with a glass of wine. Loose blonde curls framed
her face, delicate chin, pale clear skin. Blue eyes charged with
intelligence and vitality. Appealing, thought Black.
“That’s Elspeth,” the Colonel said. “In her final year at St
Andrews University, studying English and Politics. Twenty-two years
old. On the cusp of a glorious career, no doubt. The promise of a full
and happy life. Like a million other young women, I dare say. Only
she’s not. She’s unique. Her full name is Elspeth Owen. As you’ve
just read, she’s Mummy’s little girl.”
“And who’s Mummy?”
The Colonel ran a fretful hand through his hair.
“Elspeth Owen is the daughter of the Prime Minister.”

Black didn’t speak, as he tried to compute. A threat to national

security didn’t seem to do the situation justice. More like one huge
fucking shitstorm. The shitstorm of the century.
“How’s the law?” asked the Colonel suddenly.
Black took several seconds to answer, mind adjusting to the
switch in conversation.
“The law? As in my legal practice? Seeing as you’ve asked,
ranging from torpid to profound boredom. Glad you’re taking an
Another random document with
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little time to spend in wishing, though every night he went out for a
good look at the mountains. But he was beginning to think about the
kind of man that he would like to be; and every day he was a little
more sure that he wanted to be like the young superintendent.
He was so short himself that he was afraid that he would never be
as tall as Mr. Prescott. So he began to stand as tall as he could,
especially when he was in the office. Then he tried to remember to
breathe deep, the way that the teacher at school had told the boys to
do. But he wondered, sometimes, when he looked at Mr. Prescott’s
broad shoulders, whether he had ever been as small as most boys.
The day that Billy had his first little brown envelope with three
dollars and fifty cents in it, he stood very tall indeed. That night, at
supper, he handed it to Aunt Mary, saying:
“That’s for you to put in the bank.”
“For Billy,” said Uncle John, looking up quickly and speaking
almost sternly. “I’m the one to give Aunt Mary money.”
Then he said gently: “It’s a good plan, Billy, to put your first money
in the bank. You’ll never have any more just like that.”
The thing that first excited Billy’s curiosity, as he went about on
errands, was the big pile of old iron in the mill yard. There were
pieces of old stoves, and seats from schoolhouses that had been
burned, and engines that had been smashed in wrecks, and old
ploughs, and nobody knew what else—all piled up in a great heap.
One day, when he carried an order to the man that tended the
furnace in the cupola where they melted the iron, he saw them
putting pieces of old iron on the scales; and he heard the man say to
his helper: “We shall have to put in fifty pounds extra to-day.”
It seemed to Billy that it wasn’t quite fair to put in old iron, when
they were making new machinery. So, one noon, he asked Uncle
John about it.
“Using your eyes, are you, Billy? That’s quite likely to set your
mind to working.
 “I suppose you’ve heard them talking around here about testing
machinery. That isn’t the first testing. They test iron all the way
along, from the ore in the mine to the sticks of pig iron piled up in our
yard.”
“Some of it is in cakes,” said Billy.
“Is that so?” asked Uncle John, as he took another sandwich out
of his pail. “Now I think of it, they did tell me that cakes are the new
style in pig iron.
“Well,” continued Uncle John, “there are men testing and
experimenting all the time; and some of them found out that old iron
and pig iron together make better new iron than they can make from
pig iron alone. Since they found that out, scrap iron has kept on
going up in price.
“Did you happen, Billy, to see any other heaps lying around?”
“I saw a pile of coke, over in the corner,” answered Billy.
“Somewhere,” said Uncle John, “there must have been a heap of
limestone. They use that for what they call a flux. That unites with
the waste things, the ashes of the coke and any sand that may have
stuck to the pig iron. Those things together make slag. The slag is so
much lighter than the iron that it floats on top, and there are tap
holes in the cupola where they draw it off. Limestone helps the iron
to melt, that’s another reason why they use it.”
“I saw some scales,” said Billy.
“Those,” said Uncle John, “are to weigh the things that they put
into the cupola. There are rules for making cast iron. It all depends
on what kind of machinery we want to make.
“First, in the bottom of the cupola, they make a fire of shavings
and wood, with a little coal; then they put in coke, pig iron, scrap iron,
and limestone, according to the rule for the kind of iron that they
want to make.
“Those heaps all pieced together, Billy?”
“Sure,” answered Billy; and, then, the whistle blew.
 Deep down in his heart, Billy didn’t like that whistle. He didn’t tell
Uncle John, because William Wallace scorned anybody who felt like
that. William Wallace said that being on time—on time to the minute
—was only just business. Nevertheless, Billy missed being free. Aunt
Mary’s errands hadn’t been timed by the clock.
There was another reason why he didn’t tell Uncle John how he
felt.
“Stand by your job, every minute that you belong on it,” was one of
the things that Uncle John had said so many times that it almost
worried Billy.
But, before the summer was over, Billy was glad that he had kept
that on his mind.
 CHAPTER III
A MOUNTAIN OF IRON
WHETHER, if it hadn’t been for Billy’s new jack-knife, he and
Thomas Murphy would have become friends, no one can say. It
seems very probable that something would have made them like
each other.
Sitting on a high stool to check time or in a chair to watch the great
door had grown so monotonous that Tom really needed to have
somebody to talk to.
Then there wasn’t any boy in the mill for Billy to get acquainted
with; and Billy saw Tom oftener than he saw any of the other men.
So it seems very natural that Billy and Tom should have become
friends.
If they hadn’t, things wouldn’t have turned out just as they did; and
whatever else might have happened, it was really the jack-knife that
brought them together.
Billy had been in the mill about two weeks when, one morning, just
as Tom was finishing making a mark after Uncle John’s name, snap
went the point of his pencil.
Billy heard it break, and saw Tom put his hand into his pocket. Billy
knew, from Tom’s face, before he drew his hand out, that there
wasn’t any knife in his pocket.
So Billy put his dinner pail down, and pulling his knife out by the
chain, said quickly:
“I’ll sharpen your pencil, Mr. Murphy.”
Billy had been practicing on sharpening pencils. He worked so fast
that the men behind had hardly begun to grumble before the pencil
was in working order, and the line began to move on again.
 Though he did not know it, Billy had done something more than
merely to sharpen Tom’s pencil. When he said, “Mr. Murphy,” he
waked up something in Tom that Tom himself had almost forgotten
about.
He had been called “Tom Murphy” so long, sometimes only “lame
Tom,” that Billy’s saying “Mr. Murphy” had made him sit up very
straight, while he was waiting for Billy to sharpen the pencil.
Mr. Prescott thought that he really appreciated Tom. He always
said, “Tom Murphy is as faithful as the day is long”; but even Mr.
Prescott didn’t know so much about Tom as he thought he did. If Billy
and Tom hadn’t become friends, Mr. Prescott would probably never
have learned anything about the “Mr. Murphy” side of Tom.
After that morning, Billy and Tom kept on getting acquainted, until
one day when Uncle John had to go out one noon to see about
some new window screens for Aunt Mary, Billy went to the door to
see Tom.
Tom, having just sat down in his chair, was trying to get his lame
leg into a position where it would be more comfortable.
“Does your leg hurt, Mr. Murphy?” asked Billy.
“Pretty bad to-day, William,” answered Thomas Murphy with a
groan. “If it wasn’t so dry, I should think, from the way my leg aches,
that it was going to rain, but there’s no hope of that.”
“It’s rheumatism, isn’t it?” asked Billy, sympathetically.
“Part of it is,” answered Tom, “but before that it was crush. I hope
you don’t think I’ve never done anything but mark time at Prescott
mill.
“I suppose that you think you’ve seen considerable iron in this yard
and in this mill; but you don’t know half so much about iron as I did
when my legs were as good as yours.
“Out West, where I was born, there are acres and acres and acres
of iron almost on top of the ground; and, besides that, a whole
mountain of iron.”
 Tom paused a moment to move his leg again.
“Was there an iron mine in the ground, too?” asked Billy sitting
down on the threshold of the door.
“Yes, there was,” answered Tom. “If I had stayed on top of the
ground, perhaps I shouldn’t have been hurt. Might have been blown
up in a gopher hole, though, the way my brother was.”
“O-oh!” said Billy.
“Never heard of a gopher hole, I suppose,” continued Tom, settling
back in his chair, as though he intended to improve his opportunity to
talk.
“That’s one way that they get iron out of a mountain. They make
holes straight into a bank. Then they put in sacks of powder, and fire
it with a fuse. That loosens the ore so that they can use a steam
shovel. Sometimes the men go in too soon.”
“I wish,” said Billy with a little shiver, “that you would tell me about
the mine.”
“That’ll be quite a contract,” said Thomas Murphy, clasping his
hands across his chest, “but I was in one long enough to know.
“You’ll think there was a mine down in the ground when I tell you
that I’ve been down a thousand feet in one myself.
“I went down that one in a cage; but in the mine where I worked I
used to go down on ladders at the side of the shaft.”
“Was it something like a coal mine?” asked Billy.
“I’ve heard miners say,” answered Tom, “that some iron is so hard
that it has to be worked with a pick and a shovel; but the iron in our
mine was so soft that we caved it down.
“If I had been working with a pick, perhaps I shouldn’t have been
hurt.
“When you cave iron, you go down to the bottom of the shaft and
work under the iron. You cut out a place, and put in some big timbers
to hold up the roof. Then you cut some more, and keep on till you
think the roof may fall.
“Then you board that place in, and knock out some pillars, or blow
them out, and down comes the iron. Then you put it in a car and
push it to a chute, and that loads it on an elevator to be brought up.
Sometimes they use electric trams; we used to have to push the
cars.”
“It must be very hard work,” said Billy.
“Work, William, usually is hard,” said Thomas Murphy. “Work,
underground or above ground, is work, William.”
“But you haven’t told me, Mr. Murphy,” said Billy, “how you hurt
your knee.”
“The quickest way to tell you that, William, is to tell you that the
cave, that time, caved too soon. I got caught on the edge of it.
“After I got out of the hospital, I tried to work above ground; but the
noise of the steam shovels and the blasting wore me out. So, one
day, I took an ore train, and went to the boat and came up the river.
“Finally, I drifted to Prescott mill, some seasons before you were
born, William.”
“Have you ever wanted to go back?” asked Billy.
“No, William, I haven’t. There’s nobody left out there that belongs
to me, anyway. My lame knee wasn’t the only reason why I left,
William. I heard something about the country that I didn’t like at all; I
didn’t like it at all.”
“Weren’t the people good?” asked Billy.
“Very good people,” answered Thomas Murphy firmly. “’Twas
something about the mountain that I heard.
“There were always men around examining the mines. I never
paid much attention to ’em till one day I heard a man—they said he
came from some college—a-talking about volcanoes. He said that
iron mountain was thrown up by a volcano, said he was sure of it.
 “I never told anybody, William, but I cleared out the very next day.
You’ve never heard anything about volcanoes round here, have you,
William?”
“No, Mr. Murphy,” answered Billy.
“If you ever should, William——” said Thomas Murphy, leaning
anxiously forward.
“If I ever do hear, Mr. Murphy,” said Billy, feeling that he was
making a promise, “I’ll tell you right away.”
“Thank you, William,” said Tom. “You won’t mention it, will you?”
“No, Mr. Murphy,” answered Billy.
That was really the day when Billy and Thomas Murphy sealed
their compact as friends.
 CHAPTER IV
THE FOUNDRY
“MY friend, Mr. Murphy,” said Billy, one night after supper, when he
and Uncle John were sitting side by side on the steps.
“Did I understand?” interrupted Uncle John, “Mr. Murphy?”
“Yes,” answered Billy, “Mr. Thomas Murphy the timekeeper.”
“Exactly,” said Uncle John.
“Mr. Murphy,” Billy went on, “says that iron moves the world.”
“I should say,” said Uncle John, deliberately, “that power generally
has to be put into an iron harness before anything can move; but Mr.
Murphy evidently knows what he is talking about.”
“He says,” continued Billy, “that iron mills are very important
places; and that, for his part, he’s glad that he works in an iron mill.”
“That’s the way every man ought to feel about his work,” said
Uncle John; “all the work in the world has to be done by somebody.”
That remark sounded to Billy as if another motto might be coming;
and, being tired, he wanted just to be social. So he said:
“Uncle John, did you ever see Miss King, the stenographer?”
“Only coming and going,” he answered.
“She’s a friend of mine, too,” said Billy. “She told me, to-day, that
she wants me always to feel that she is my friend.”
“Everything going all right in the office, Billy?” asked Uncle John,
quickly.
“Oh, yes,” answered Billy, with a little note of happiness in his
voice. “She told me that so as to make me feel comfortable. She’s
the loveliest woman I ever saw. Don’t you think, Uncle John, that
yellow-brown is the prettiest color for hair?”
“I do,” said Uncle John, emphatically. Then, rising to go into the
house, he added, “That’s exactly what I used to call Aunt Mary’s hair,
yellow-brown.”
“Oh!” said Billy wonderingly. Then it was time for him to go to bed;
but he lingered a moment to look at Aunt Mary’s hair that was dark
brown, now, where it wasn’t gray. There was something in his “Good-
night, Aunt Mary,” that made her look up from her paper as she said:
“Good-night, William Wallace.”
Anybody can see that William Wallace is a hard name for a boy to
go to bed on. It was so hard for Billy that it almost hurt; but Billy had
lived with Aunt Mary long enough to be sure that she meant to be a
true friend.
Whether or not Mr. Prescott was his friend, Billy did not know. Mr.
Murphy had told him one day when he was out by the door, waiting
for the postman, that Mr. Prescott was a friend to every man in the
mill. Billy supposed that every man was a friend back again. At any
rate he knew that he was; and he hoped that, some day, he would be
able to do something, just to show Mr. Prescott how much he liked
him.
The more he thought about it, the more it didn’t seem possible that
such a hope as that could ever come true.
But anybody who liked anybody else as much as he liked Mr.
Prescott couldn’t help seeing that something bothered him. So Billy
had a little secret with himself to try to look specially pleasant when
Mr. Prescott came in from a trip around the mill. He had begun to
think that Mr. Prescott had given up springing questions on him
when, one very warm afternoon, Mr. Prescott looked up from his
desk and said:
“William, if you were to have an afternoon off, what would you do?”
“I’d rather than anything else in the world,” answered Billy
promptly, “go out into the country.”
 “That being hardly feasible,” said Mr. Prescott, “what else would
you rather do?”
“Next to that,” answered Billy, “I’d rather go into the foundry to see
Uncle John work.”
“Well!” exclaimed Mr. Prescott, whirling around in his chair. “That’s
about the last thing that I should have thought of, especially on such
a hot day. May I inquire whether you are interested in iron?”
Billy, with a quick flash of spirit, answered promptly, “I am, sir.”
As promptly Mr. Prescott said, “I’m glad to hear it, William. You
may spend the rest of the afternoon in the foundry.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Billy, very much surprised. Then he looked at
Miss King, and she nodded and smiled.
Billy ran down the corridor, passing Mr. Murphy with a flying salute,
and hurried across the yard to the foundry door.
Just then he remembered that he hadn’t a permit; but the foreman
appeared in the door saying, “The super has telephoned over that
you’re to visit us this afternoon.”
Pointing across the room, he added, “Your uncle is over there.”
Billy wanted to surprise his Uncle John, so he went carefully along
the outer side of the long, low room, past pile after pile of gray black
sand, until he came to the place where Uncle John was bending over
what seemed to be a long bar of sand.
“Uncle John,” he said softly.
“Why, Billy, my lad!” exclaimed he, looking up with so much
surprise in his face that Billy said quickly:
“It’s all right, Uncle John. Mr. Prescott sent me to watch you work.”
“Things,” said Uncle John, with a smile that made wrinkles around
his eyes, “generally come round right if you wait for them.”
“What is that?” asked Billy, pointing at the bar.
 “That is a mold for a lathe,” answered Uncle John. “I’m nearly
through with it, then I’m going to help out on corn cutters. We have a
rush order on corn canning machines. You’d better sit on that box till
I’m through.”
Billy looked at the tiny trowel in Uncle John’s hand, and saw him
take off a little sand in one place, and put some on in another, until
the mold was smooth and even. Then he tested his corners with
what he called a “corner slick.”
“I never supposed that you worked that way,” said Billy, “but Miss
King told me that molders are artists in sand.”
“Did she, though?” said Uncle John, straightening up to take a final
look at his work. “I’ll remember that.
“Now we’ll go over where they are working on the corn cutters. It’s
a little cooler on that side.”
“Where does black sand come from?” asked Billy.
“It’s yellow,” answered his uncle, “when we begin to use it, but the
action of the hot iron, as we use it, over and over, turns it black.”
Then came the work that Billy had waited so long to see.
Uncle John took a wooden frame—he called it a drag—which was
about two feet square and not quite so deep. He put it on a bench
high enough for him to work easily. Then he laid six cutters for a corn
canning machine, side by side, in the bottom of the box.
“Those,” he said, “are patterns.”
Taking a sieve—a riddle—he filled it with moist sand which he
sifted over the cutters. Next, with his fingers, he packed the sand
carefully around the patterns. Then, with a shovel, he filled the drag
with sand, and rammed it down with a wooden rammer until the drag
was full.
“Now,” said he, taking up a wire, “I am going to make some vent
holes, so the steam can escape.”
When that was done, he clamped a top on the box, turned it over,
and took out the bottom.
 Billy could see the cutters, bedded firm in the sand.
Blowing off the loose sand with bellows, and smoothing the sand
around the pattern, Uncle John took some dry sand, which he sifted
through his fingers, blowing it off where it touched the cutters.
“This sand,” he said, “will keep the two parts of the mold from
sticking together.”
 HE FILLED IT WITH MOIST SAND

Then he took another frame, a cope, which was like the first,
except that it had pins on the sides, where the other had sockets.
Slipping the pins into the sockets, he fastened them together.
Taking two round, tapering plugs of wood, he set them firmly in the
sand, at each end of the patterns.
“One of those,” said he, “will make a place for the hot iron to go in,
and the other for it to rise up on the other side.”
Then he filled the second box as he had the first, and made more
vent holes.
“Billy,” he said, suddenly, “where are those corn cutters?”
“In the middle of the box,” answered Billy promptly, just as if he
had always known about molding in sand.
“Now,” said Uncle John, “comes the artist part.”
Lifting the second part off the first, he turned it over carefully and
set it on the bench.
“There they are,” exclaimed Billy.
“There they are,” said Uncle John, with a smile, “but there they are
not going to remain.”
Dipping a sponge in water, he wet the sand around the edges of
the pattern. Then he screwed a draw spike into the middle of the
pattern and rapped it gently with a mallet to loosen it from the sand.
“Pretty nearly perfect, aren’t they?” he said, when he had them all
safely out. “Now for some real artist work.”
With a lifter he took out the sand that had fallen into the mold,
patched a tiny break here and there, and tested the corners.
Last of all he made grooves, which he called “gates,” between the
patterns, and also at the ends where the iron was to be poured in.
 Then he clamped the two boxes together. “Now the holes are in
the middle,” said he, “and I hope that they will stay there till the iron
is poured in.”
Billy, sitting on a box, watched Uncle John till he had finished
another set of molds.
“That all clear so far?” asked Uncle John.
“Sure,” answered Billy.
“Think you could do it yourself?” broke in a heavy voice.
Billy, looking up, saw the foreman, who had been watching Billy
while he watched his uncle.
“I think I know how,” answered Billy.
“If you won’t talk to the men,” said the foreman, “you may walk
around the foundry until we are ready to pour.”
So Billy walked slowly around the long foundry. He saw that each
man had his own pile of sand, but the piles were growing very small,
because the day’s work was nearly over. The molds were being put
in rows for the pouring.
He had walked nearly back to his Uncle John when he happened
to step in a hollow place in the earth floor and, losing his balance, fell
against a man who was carrying a mold.
With a strange, half-muttered expression the man pushed his
elbow against Billy and almost threw him down.
Billy, looking up into a pair of fierce black eyes that glared at him
from under a mass of coal black hair, turned so pale that William
Wallace then and there called him a coward.
As fast as his feet would carry him Billy went back to Uncle John,
who, still busy with his molds, said:
“Go out behind the foundry and look in at the window to see us
pour.”
Billy, for the first time in his life thoroughly frightened, was glad to
go out into the open air.
 Then he went to the window opposite the great cupola to wait for
the pouring.
There at the left of the furnace door stood the foundry foreman, tall
and strong, holding a long iron rod in his hand. He, too, was waiting.
Then, because Billy had thought and thought over what Uncle
John had told him about pouring, his mind began to make a picture;
and when sparks of fire from the spout shot across the foundry, the
cupola became a fiery dragon and the foreman a noble knight,
bearing a long iron spear.
Only once breathed the dragon; for the knight, heedless of danger,
closed the iron mouth with a single thrust of his spear.
Another wait. This time the knight forced the dragon to open his
mouth, and the yielding dragon sent out his pointed, golden tongue.
But only for a moment; for again the knight thrust in his iron spear.
At last the knight gave way to the dragon.
Then, wonder of wonders, from the dragon’s mouth there came a
golden, molten stream.
When the great iron ladle below was almost filled, the knight
closed once more the dragon’s mouth.
Two by two came men bearing between them long-handled iron
ladles. The great ladle swung forward, for a moment, on its tilting
gear, and the men bore away their ladles filled with iron that the
great dragon had changed from its own dull gray to the brilliant
yellow of gold.
The molds, as they were filled, smoked from all their venting
places, till, to his picture, Billy added a place for a battle-field.
By the time that the last molds were filled, some of the men began
to take off the wooden frames, and there the iron was, gray again,
but, this time, shaped for the use of man.
“See,” said Uncle John, coming to the window, “there are our corn
cutters. Came out pretty well, didn’t they?”
 “Wasn’t it great!” exclaimed Billy.
“Just about as wonderful every time,” said Uncle John.
“What do they do next?” asked Billy.
“Make new heaps of sand—every man his own heap—and in the
morning, after the castings have been carried into the mill, they
begin all over again.”
“I’m so glad I saw it,” said Billy, drawing a deep breath of
satisfaction.
That night he told Aunt Mary about what he had seen. And he
thought about it almost until he fell asleep. Almost, but not quite; for,
just as he was dozing off, William Wallace said:
“You were frightened—frightened. You showed a white feather!”
Half asleep as he was, Billy, tired of William Wallace’s superior
airs, roused himself long enough to say: “We’ll see who has white
feathers.”